


Chess

by FlyingDutchy



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Chess, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 16:36:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12084984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlyingDutchy/pseuds/FlyingDutchy
Summary: Almost each night Clarke and Lexa play chess, a game which Clarke has mastered and Lexa has not. Clarke, competitive as she is, never wants to lose.





	Chess

**Author's Note:**

> I'm wondering if I should make a single one-shot story and just update the chapters every time, or keep adding new stories. Part of me wants to add them separately to keep up with the Bellarke numbers (though we have many more novel sized works, yay!) and the other part wants to keep my stories at a single place. It would also be easier to take prompts that way. 
> 
> Let me know what you think, and if you want more of these one-shot types of stories.

 

 

 

It almost was a daily occurrence. In spring and summer they’d sit on the balcony under the setting sun, during the colder seasons they would move inside near the fireplace. Today was one of those days where the heat evaporated before it could latch on to any living subjects. The two of them were huddled next to the fireplace, wrapped in heavy furs to keep whatever heat their bodies provided trapped in the many layers. 

Her eyes narrowed at the board with the many wooden pieces. Sixteen for either side, two colors, black and white, opposing each other. To touch was to make a move, and she was not sure how to approach this match. 

There only other person in the room was relaxed, but she did not know the stakes behind every single game they played. Clarke wanted to win, she  _ needed _ to win, because there were very few things that she could best the Commander at. This game was one of them. 

That was why her moves took longer than Lexa’s, they required more deliberation, more planning and, to her, had more weight. It didn’t matter that the score was five hundred and three to zero, in Clarke’s advantage. 

Her opening move was a classic, she moved her right white knight over the pawn to the center of the board, a move which Lexa mirrored. 

“How did your Abby fare against Ero?” Lexa said while waiting for her move. She didn’t respond, and her opponent didn’t expect her to until after she had made her move. She followed up with advancing one of her own white pawns forward. 

“Abby was intimidated.” She said finally. 

Lexa had no issues with playing and talking at the same time. “I saw. By the end, Ero was intimidated as well. Everytime I see your mother, I see where you get it from.” 

The pieces moved across the board. Many positions and openings had terms from the old world, but these terms were not known to either of them. They developed a style to play against each other, and Clarke, having more experience with the game, taught more than she learned. 

The first victim was one of her pawns, Lexa smirked as she took the white pawn of the board. Clarke wanted to wipe it off her face. 

“Octavia is baring her second child.” Clarke retaliated by taking the black pawn in return, and the board was equal once again. She felt confident in her move, she controlled the center of the board, while Lexa had holed up in her corner, swapping her king with the rook in a defensive position. 

“Eve is a strong baby, she’s hoping to give her a brother to play with.” Lexa scoffed. 

“Hoping for a gender is something typically  _ skaikru _ , I thought Octavia was better integrated.” 

“You don’t prefer a certain gender?” 

“Oh I  _ certainly  _ do.” The smirk on Lexa’s face had a dangerous effect on her. Her stomach fluttered and she had to clench her thighs together.  _ Focus on the game,  _ don’t think with your female parts. “Just not for any children.”

The game developed as more pieces were brought into play. Lexa developed her knights, Clarke brought in rooks. She was still in control of the center, and the commander moved on the flanks. She thought she saw an opening and pressed forward with her queen. Lexa countered by bringing one of her own bishops across the front lines, putting pressure on one of her knights. 

“We like to say we don’t, but not-so-secretly men prefer boys and women prefer girls.”

Form the outside, it must have seemed a very stunted conversation. It flowed smoothly during Lexa’s turns, but halted, unless the Commander spoke, during Clarke’s. To her, however, the conversation was smooth, because she did not notice the longer breaks whenever she debated the next move that would bring Lexa’s defeat. 

Then she thought she saw the commander make a fatal mistake by putting her knight forward in an undefended position on the left flank. Clarke almost took it. Here, her slow deliberative turns prevented her from falling in the trap. Taking that night would have resulted in a bloodbath, bringing all Lexa’s pieces into play, while moving her own out of position. 

She grumbled, because this was an excellent move by her lover, and Lexa’s smirk only grew. She bit her cheek and saw that she could not take the knight, and instead would lose one of her own. 

“Did you succeed in garnering support from the  _ Ouskejonkru _ for the next vote?” 

“Yes, they took some convincing, and I offered a slightly better trade deal for textiles in return for their agreement.” Lexa hummed in agreement. 

“Their ambassador has taken a liking to you.” Clarke was surprised at the news. 

“Does he have a deathwish?” She referred to Lexa’s jealous tendencies. “They all know that I am yours.”

Lexa finally made her move and pressed forward with the knight and Clarke took it with her pawn. She debated taking it with her queen instead, it was free, but moving her queen would relieve pressure on one of Lexa’s pieces, allowing her to move it. 

“He knows. You just have that effect on people.” She felt her cheeks heat up. The casual compliments were the best. There was no intense stare, no mockery, just Lexa’s casual observation and how she relayed it to the blonde. “He won’t act on it.”

They both knew the consequences of someone that did act on it, aggressively. It outed her relationship with the commander to the outside world when Lexa intervened when the heir of the Desert Clan, a young arrogant prince, made a move on the ambassador of the Sky People. If the preamble had not been so public, the action might have lead to a war. She had repeatedly told the confident prince no, pushed his advances away, until they became more serious in nature. 

When he groped her, the retaliation was swift. A sword cut through flesh and the hand that had touched her was no longer connected to the arm. Lexa’s face had shown no remorse, in fact, she wanted to continue her onslaught. When the Sankru king asked retribution for his sons hand, accusing the commander of favoritism because she was simply jealous, Lexa outed his son’s unwanted advances. 

It turned out that breaching consent was taken  _ very _ seriously by the grounders. The king banished his own son, mainly because he had a younger, wiser daughter and finally had an excuse, and profusely apologised to her and Lexa. The clans took Lexa’s side, but she knew that her reaction had been too harsh and they had been lucky that the clans were forgiving. 

“He is appealing. I prefer those in a position of power.” She baited Lexa, and she took it. Lexa’s queen was being pressured by her bishop, and instead of moving it to safety, she moved her own bishop to a more central position. A fatal mistake.

Clarke struck and removed the most powerful black piece from the board, and there was nothing that threatened her piece. It was a free take, and she expected that Lexa would resign at that moment. So when she didn’t, and instead instantly took her white-square bishop with her own, while mating her king. 

It took a brief moment for the move to register. The continuation of the entire game played out in front of her eyes. For many of the turns, her options were limited due to the cover that Lexa’s pieces had over the board. One by one, she lost a pawn, her remaining bishop, a rook, another two pawns. 

Her mouth dropped at the decimation of her pieces. She managed to take a rook herself, but it is hopeless and she resigns. 

“You sacrificed your queen.” She said as a bitter loser. “I  _ really _ should have seen that coming.”

She expected Lexa to gloat in her first victory in two years, like she herself had done often before. Instead, the brunette sat silently while Clarke cleaned up the board and put the pieces back into the container. When she finally looked up, she jerked back at the sight. 

Lexa was not gloating, not smiling, but instead she sat still, unmoving, as tears trailed down her cheeks. 

“How long...?” The commander croaked through a tearful grimace. “Will I ever be released from the hold  _ that _ day has over us?”

Only on two occasions before had Clarke seen her cry. The first was one she had convinced herself that it was a hallucination, the second was when she finally kissed the girl on her own volition. 

“Shit. Lexa.” She shrugged off her own furs and the cold in the room made her shiver, but it wasn’t why her hands were shaking. Her hands which had ended the lives of so many, were now shaking because she had made the strongest person she knew cry. The one that didn’t cry, never showed anyone her emotions besides her, but Clarke managed to break her. And she wasn’t even trying, nor really angry.

Lexa wasn’t sobbing. She wasn’t even moving. She just sat there, blinking as water kept filling her eyes, and stared at the wall behind Clarke, straight through the blonde. So Clarke hovered, not knowing what to do, because what could you do when the most powerful woman was not strong enough. 

“I’m sorry.” It pained her that it was Lexa that spoke those words, not her. “I’m sorry.” 

“Stop it.” She said harshly, and Lexa snapped her eyes to hers. She read the pain in them, the forgiveness she sought, but that Clarke could never fully give her. And that was the problem. They had not mentioned that day to each other for two years, they never spoke about the betrayal to each other. 

Without her needing to explain it to the blonde, she knew why Lexa broke in this instant. It should have been a victory, well deserved by the brunette after two years of constantly losing and never being bitter about it, of always asking for a rematch the following day. They both knew that she was a terrible loser, and that never really mattered before. But then she had to go  _ there _ , to bring up the fact that  _ she  _ had been sacrificed once as well. 

It was so casual, the way she brought up this memory that hung between them and was never truly acknowledged. 

“It’s never, right?” Lexa said with a small voice, and she confirms it by not speaking out against the statement. “No matter what I do, or how I love you, this will always be.”

She nodded slowly, never losing contact with the green eyes that held so much pain in this moment. She wondered if this was it, if this would be the end of their relationship. If it was, if this moment was unmendable, then Clarke also knew that she would need to be the one that says it. “I’m sorry, I can’t-”

And it infuriated her that the commander does not defend herself, or attacked her on this, because the two of them knew that the choice had been Lexa’s. Even if she would have made the same choice if offered, it was the commander that made it, not her. 

“I know.” The brunette said after a long pause where Clarke watched the commander dry her eyes and square her shoulders. Lexa then stood up, rising up to meet her level, and left the room. She paused briefly at the doorway and muttered another apology. 

Clarke was still hovering above two sets of furs and the abandoned chess set with pieces scattered all around. 

Later that night, after she had failed miserably, literally, to cry herself to sleep, she was surprised to feel the mattress dip when another body slipped in behind her. Warm hands snuck around her torso from behind and enveloped her. “I’m…”

“Sssh.” She felt a breeze of hot air in her neck, shushing her apology. The commander pressed her body against her, heating the both of them. They stayed silent in their embrace and Clarke felt that she could fall asleep now that she knew that everything was, not okay, but fine. 

“I finally won.” Lexa said sleepily.

“Rematch tomorrow?” Clarke responded. And this would be the truce. They still loved each other, and would always love each other. The incident would be forgiven and forgotten, because  _ this  _ one could.  

“Always.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought!
> 
> PS: The chess game is actually based on a real game played in the 50's between a kid and a master. The kid won.


End file.
